£600,000 bill for the couple who terrorised their neighbours

A WEALTHY couple who bought a rural retreat found themselves the victims of a bitter campaign by their only neighbours for miles around.

Steven Young, pictured with his wife Fiona, was the only neighbour of the Raymonds[CASCADE]

Retired solicitor Peter Raymond, 67, and his wife Lesley, 57, a retired diplomat, paid £600,000 for the 17th century Lin Crag Farm in 24 acres of the Lake District countryside.

It was their dream home but life became a nightmare when rotting rubbish was dumped on their property, fences damaged, security CCTV cameras daubed with paint and they feared there was a threat they could be murdered.

Now the tables have been turned on their persecutors, to the tune of nearly £600,000, after a judge ordered the neighbouring Young family to pay £196,000 damages and £400,000 in legal costs – half of which is for their own legal team.

Instead of the Raymonds being forced out the Youngs have left their seven-bedroom cottage and are renting a smaller property in a nearby village.

The Raymonds bought their home in picturesque Blawith, Cumbria, in 2009. It was complete with a helicopter garage, games room, bar and indoor badminton court.

But it also came with a simmering feud with Steven Young, whose family had owned the farm until his father sold it in 1965.

He resented wealthy newcomers and it emerged in the hearing that a previous owner of the farmhouse, Colony Candles boss Alan Williams, branded them “neighbours from hell” before his death in a plane crash in 2005.

Mr Young and his wife Fiona launched a campaign against the Raymonds that led them to sue for harassment, trespass, ­nuisance, assault and slander.

The Young's house can be seen on the left, with the Raymond's property on the right [ CASCADE]

Mr Young has been ­unable to accept the fact he has no legal dominion over that property

Duncan Smith, recorder

The Raymonds also claimed the value of their home had been slashed by the Youngs’ actions as they failed to sell it after putting it on the ­market for £980,000.

Mr Raymond, a public notary appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and listed in Debrett’s, told the hearing Mr Young was filmed mooning at his CCTV ­cameras.

A more sinister incident occurred in 2010 just weeks after Derrick Bird went on the rampage in West Cumbria, killing 12 people and himself.

Mr Young was recorded telling Mrs Raymond: “We can all be pushed further than we want to go.

"Look at that poor guy in Whitehaven.”

At Kendal Civil Court this week Recorder Duncan Smith dismissed as “delusion” the Youngs’ claim they had fallen prey to an ­“elaborate conspiracy”.

He said: “Mr Young has been ­unable to accept the fact he has no legal dominion over that property.

“It is clear it was his intention to make the life of those who occupy the farm a misery, that he has a deep-seated aversion to those wealthy enough to afford a second home the size of the farm and that the notoriety of his conduct is an open secret in the locality.”

The Youngs say their life has been “destroyed”.

Mrs Young said: “They have painted this picture of us as some kind of Asbo-family and we’re not like that at all.”

Yesterday the Raymonds’ legal team did not respond to requests for a comment.